Waiting

There are women in several cities who will soon be on the last leg to my house: Davidson, Charlotte, Pinnacle, Concord. I've been looking forward to this for weeks, these women, these friends coming to my house for Art Camp, we are calling it.  None of us are artists, in fact, if you ask us, one by one, in a secluded room, we might each admit that we are a little afraid of "art", of the title, of the doing of it, of getting very close to "it."
That's the point, precisely.  Everybody is bringing food, with which they are comfortable, and wine, with which they are comfortable.  Chocolate is being imported, and multiple cheeses, and soup and salad and homemade breads and decadent cookies.  They are bringing their pillows, for gosh sakes, because they are all spending the night.  Oh, and popcorn, and a special popcorn pot that has served a dear friend's family for decades and has traveled multiple times to the beach when a permutation of this group goes, once or twice a year.
The house is about ready.  Beds are made with clean sheets, toilets are scrubbed.  There is a tablecloth on the kitchen table.  It is in the kitchen that we will spend most of our time, if it turns out like other gatherings.  There are Christmas decorations because it is only close to the end of January, not the actual end of January, and it is only when it gets to be a month late that I start to realize no one else still has Santa propped up in the living room. 
Its hard to be out of town, even overnight.  We've already had three people who couldn't come at the last minute.  One, who has just had surgery, and that on top of the recent promotion has her napping this weekend.  Another's mother was rushed to the hospital last night with shortness of breath, this, the woman into whom a heart stint was installed mere months ago.  And then there is my former Wake Forest neighbor, known for her huge heart, who is home instead of here, helping an abandoned Mama dog and all her many puppies, dumped only yesterday, precipitously, and heartlessly into this woman's front yard.
Life for the other four allows them this visit. For them, it isn't this weekend that the world opens one of its more jagged edges.  It happened to me the first time this playtime was scheduled.  All was arranged.  The menu was collectively derived, clothes were being washed to go into suitcases.  Then we got the call.  A dear dear man, friend and relative, had succumbed to esophageal cancer, after fighting year after year.  The services were the following weekend, the weekend of Art Camp.
So we collect this weekend.  And as I put candles in candle holders, and make sure that all the work spaces in the big room have enough light, as I wait for this glorious group of women to come in the door, one by one, with olives and cheeses and pillows and soup, floorcloths and cardstock and fabric and paint, I am so so grateful that life has opened up this space for us.
It is a space to color outside the lines, because it is too precious not to.  Life is outside the lines, in those spaces where we play when we can, and when it is time to tend to mothers and puppies and tired bodies, that we do that too, hopefully, out of this searing fullness.  And when we have it, we share it.  And when we don't have it, if we are lucky, we have a friend that does.
I didn't used to know this, either how to play, or how vital it is.  I used to think that work was the only holder of merit, that the more difficult something was, the more points it bestowed.  Needless to say, that attitude didn't leave much room for floorcloths and paint and pillows and friends making the time to come and take a risk. . .